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Cleveland Browns' Brandon Weeden gets a third chance not to be the same old Weeden: Bill Livingston

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Brandon Weeden has taken his lumps in Cleveland. Sunday vs. the Lions is the start of another attempt to make himself over as the team's quarterback of the future, says Bill Livingston.
(John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer)

BEREA, Ohio – Browns fans certainly didn't come to praise Brandon Weeden in the Buffalo game when he replaced the red-hot and supremely confident Brian Hoyer, who, while he was “Cleveland’s own,” was also out for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

From the boos that greeted Weeden, they came to bury him. On the bright side, no one showed up at the Weeden residence with a shovel.

“No one knows where I live,” Weeden joked, when told a Houston Texans fan showed up at beleaguered quarterback Matt Schwab’s house and gave him a piece of whatever was left of his mind.

Weeden takes what is now, by default, his Browns team against the Detroit Lions on the lakefront Sunday. Buffalo sacked the immobile Weeden five times. This is not a good precedent against Detroit’s violent, vicious pass rusher Ndamukong Suh.

At first in the Buffalo game, Weeden seemed to be the Christian and the Browns fans the lions. Just when it was threatening to get Derek Anderson/Tim Couch ugly, Weeden steadied himself and, warts and all, led the Browns to a victory.

“It’s impressive that he dealt with it, didn’t listen to it, and it didn’t affect him at all,” said Browns coach Rob Chudzinski.

Actually, Weeden did listen to it, although Chudzinski, cocooned in his headset, did not. But some good throws after a rocky start got Weeden a reprieve. And winning solves a lot of problems.

Asked if he treated the relief appearance against Buffalo as a “mulligan,” Weeden, who was good enough to be a walk-on for the powerful Oklahoma State golf team, said he plays a lot of golf, but he didn’t look at it like that.

A mulligan is a do-over when a player discards a bad shot. Is Weeden capable of turning a do-over into a make-over?

“Pocket awareness,” which sounds like a strategy against theft in crowds, is Weeden’s biggest failing. Good quarterbacks feel pressure. The great quarterbacks, such as Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees, sense pass rushers without even seeing them. They move a quick step or two, maybe into the “eye” of the hurricane when that happens. Or, like Brees, they scuttle a step or so to the side to find a lane for the throw.

They know before the snap what the possibilities are.

These are processes Weeden discusses knowledgeably, but often does not implement properly.

He said a quick delivery depends on the play that is called and involves getting off his “first progression” (the primary receiver’s pattern) faster and adjusting to the defensive look before the snap. This might enable him to anticipate when Suh is about to jump on him from the turnbuckle Sunday.

“You may have to sit there and have to hold it for a double move or a progressive route,” he said.

Weeden “sitting there” is indeed a sight to make Brown eyes sore. Difficulty in identifying the defensive scheme is increased when a quarterback is not nimble. Rodgers can hurt defenses with scrambles and so can Brees and Andrew Luck. The new dual-threat philosophy, embodied by Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III before he got hurt, can bend and break defenses.

When was the last time Weeden rushed for 10 yards or more?

Actually, he has done so three times -- for 25 in his historically bad (5.1 quarterback rating) rookie debut, then 15 against Kansas City and 13 vs. Indianapolis, also in his rookie year, when he was on his way to his Richardsonian 3.7-yard average.

Against Buffalo, however, he usually simply went down. Which might be the prudent course after Hoyer was knocked out on a scramble.

After not taking first-team practice repetitions for two weeks following the loss of his starting job because of a thumb injury, having thrown for the first time only two days before the Buffalo game, without the benefit of the eight warm-up pitches he got before each inning as a minor-league baseball player, rushed into the game cold – Weeden actually played pretty well under the circumstances.

Getting "up to speed" is difficult in any sport. Weeden remembered a bunt the Indians' Michael Bourn dropped down on him in Class A ball. Trying to make a "Web gem" of a fielding play, Weeden whipped the ball to first in a blur, only to see Bourn beat the throw by two steps.

Short-route accuracy is a problem now for Weeden. He once shattered clay pigeons with a football for an edition of ESPN's Sports Science show. Hitting human beings in stride at NFL speed has proven tougher.

His strength is a powerful arm that lets him occasionally connect on the deep ball. Such passes require good protection, and even with the best blockers, that isn't always going to happen. Also required is a game-breaking receiver, and Josh Gordon is the only one around.

“Norv Turner (offensive coordinator) says we’ll be better in November than in September,” said Weeden, referring to growing familiarity with the offense.

He also said the response to adversity is "soul searching," the need to “dig down and find yourself.”

This is Weeden's third chance. He was given the job without a real competition with Colt McCoy as a rookie, then retained as the starter despite the front office's misgivings this year, and now he's back after Hoyer had replaced him.

November is still a few weeks off and September is a discarded page of the calendar. Or perhaps he will find the same old Weeden.

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